I am a man and heterosexual, but I identify with you, although for other reason: when I first came to Wikipedia, the very first thing I started to do was improving the style of all the Wikipedia:xx pages I could find and asking about possible changes to the look of the main page. Some users thought that I was just disturbing, and finally, after some time, it all came up to a really drastic situation which almost made me leave Wikipedia (I won't tell).
Now what I came to post:
Since more than a year ago I've been improving several articles in the Spanish Wikpedia which I'm sure that women visit a lot: [[:es:Amor]] (love) and [[:es:Autoestima]] (self-esteem) are two of them. The article [[:es:Risa]] (laughter) could also be interesting for women, I think. And nursing is a profession with a majority of women (I am a nurse), so the articles about nursing science are not well developed, at least in the Spanish Wikipedia, which I know better.
Miguel Ángel
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Estimado Carolmooredc,
Con fecha jueves, 10 de febrero de 2011, 17:26:44, escribió:
Hi. I'm Carolmooredc and since I edit on controversial political topics I get in lots of trouble with guys who don't like opinionated females who don't shut up and go away when they are told to. I wish it got me down enough to leave and do something more profitable, but I'm stubborn
- and semi-retired with lots of time on my hands.
I'd like to get more educated and retired people involved and think there are tens of thousands who could be attracted - if we could deal with the bar room brawl aspects of wikipedia as this exaggerated but amusing article describes: "Wikipedia: This is a man's world" http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/wikipedia-...
If the Egyptians can get rid of Mubarak, we can get rid of incivility on Wikipedia. (And it is catching; I tend to catch it myself when editing on one or two articles where there's lots of it and before you know it, I'm bringing (mild versions of) it elsewhere where all is peaceful. But at least I'm always willing to apologize and strike my (relatively mild) incivil comments.
Anyway, bottom line of why I am posting here is to alert people to at least one place where relevant discussions listed (now just haphazardly in talk). Which is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Feminism (I don't know if other languages have such projects.)
Perhaps "WikiProjects Women" on all language Wikipedias are necessary to draw in women who for various reasons might not go to a "Wikiproject Feminism"??
Anyway, an idea of current issues below on en. wikipedia below in case anyone wants to jump right in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Wikipedia#Gender_bias Needs expanding
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Civility#Proposal Someone else proposed language to WP:Civility to make slurs vs. homosexuals a no -no and I pointed out it wasn't clear that slurs against women as women are not sufficiently outlawed in the proposal (or now). And of course people are now saying adding one or two words to make both clear is just too much bureaucracy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2011_Fe... Proposal to delete in order to to try to have a unified policy because some categories allow people/organizations to be categorized who may be bigoted and others don't. Because of consensus on the talk page (formed by who?) Category:Homophobia doesn't allow it and I have a feeling Category:sexism wouldn't allow some of us to put all the overtly sexist (via WP:RS) males and organizations in that category.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Username_policy#Need_more_warnin... Do we need stronger warnings to new users (esp women) that using real names (or sex) can lead to harassment? Or even a check mark box for them to check they've read about that possibility on registering ? (Obviously, using my real name, I've had problems!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/dispute_resoluti... Main relevant proposals are relating to easier blocks for bad behavior. (Elsewhere dealing with editors who gang up on others, whether from POV or just enjoy trashing females, has been discussed so that may yet be a related proposal on that page.) I was working on a proposal when the NT TImes articles came out and got sidetracked. Anyway, we definitely need more female input.
Thanks...
Carol in dc
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